Another RNC data guru heads for the exits

The Republican National Committee is losing its fifth staffer in just over a month.

Conor Maguire, who has been working at the committee since 2011, is expected to depart in the next few weeks, according to two senior Republicans familiar with the move. Maguire, who served as director of external support, joins a wave of aides who have exited the committee’s data department amid a change in leadership among its top ranks.

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Since July, deputy chief data officer Liam O’Rourke, director of political data support Ashley Burns, and director of business intelligence Patrick Stewart have all signaled plans to leave. The chief data officer, Jesse Kamzol, abruptly departed.

The exits come amid a broader upheaval within the data department, an area the committee has made a focus. Last month, Katie Walsh, a close ally of former White House chief of staff and ex-RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, was named senior data adviser. It was also announced that Ellen Bredenkoetter, who worked on Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s presidential bid, would replace Kamzol.

Party operatives have been taken aback by the departures, which come at a relatively early stage in the 2018 campaign. They say the elevation of Bredenkoetter, a newcomer to the committee, has left some hurt feelings among veteran RNC aides who’ve been passed over.

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The change in leadership followed an extensive audit of the data department that was quietly ordered up by RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel. The audit, which was based on interviews with over 100 party strategists, suggested changes to improve its data program, which is widely relied upon by GOP candidates.

During its annual summer meeting in Nashville last week, the RNC held a closed-door, two-hour briefing to update top party officials on its data and field deployment plans.

The RNC declined to comment on Maguire’s departure, but said that it was in the process of growing its data team and that new hires were forthcoming. The committee has a nearly $40 million cash edge over its Democratic counterpart.

“The RNC data department is in the process of a large staff expansion and will roughly double in size in the coming weeks and months,” said Ellen Bredenkoetter, the RNC’s chief data officer. “We are taking lessons learned from the past two successful election cycles and expanding our efforts to give RNC data resources to more Republican campaigns to ensure we are successful in 2018 and 2020.”